Tuesday, 24 May 2016

While my students are looking at the habit of reflection, I have been reflecting on where I am at the moment, sort of taking a stocktake of how things are going.

While things are going well with modules, SPINS, projects. The new floortime for this term is going really well. It is different from my normal ideas. It is based around the Department of Conservation Battle for our birds.

I have been using a metaphor lately, trying to keep everything in the box. Taking on some new challenges this year has made me take note a bit more of what I am doing. Learning Design Leader and timetabler. Both of these are providing me some great challenges.

One thing that I feel is falling outside the box and upsetting me is Learning Hub. This is something that is higher up this year as it is also one of my goals. As you can see in my previous blog posts I have been putting some new activities and ideas into what I am doing in hub. Planning is a big one now, as it is a sizeable amount of time. The great thing has been the development of a hub curriculum which is designed to allow the dispositions(habits) to be explored and inquired about. Then why has it escaped the box. There has been a number of other activities, ideas and exploration happen that has happened. I feel like the planning and work involved in the development of the hub that has been a goal has been taken out of my hands. Something which I am struggling to share.

While also looking at reflection I have been thinking about other things, what is happening in my life at the moment. I have started being a bit more adventurous, I have started getting my food bag. It is taking me out of my comfortzone of the food that I normally eat. Yes, I needed to change what I ate, too many times not being organised of what to get at the supermarket. Maybe that needed to be taken out of my hands for a while. I am looking at my food bag for three weeks and relooking at what it has allowed. A Rose, Bud, Thorn exercise.

Monday

Tuesday

I also am looking at what I doing as extra-curricular. I have restarted taking photo at sports games this season, something which supports our students and our vision.

I am helping take a fantastic group of students through the Hillary Challenge training at present. Every Monday and Friday at 7am they are there, excited and ready for the challenges that they are put through. My favourite has to be keypunch and street number bingo.

I am also enjoying the mountain biking winter series again. It allows for so many of the habits to be shown, I enjoyed the comments from the students as they finished this week about the mud, throwing a bike at the marshalls (sorry, didn't see you behind the tree) and the initial, I hate this, i am not doing it again, through to I can't wait for next time.

P.S I think my students did enjoy eating a raisin, listen to it here. In learning hub.

Reflective: I look back to look forward.

Metacognitive

Perceptive

Mindful

Observant

Self Aware

Insightful

A Critical Thinker

Analytical

Revising

Strategic

I am always thinking about my thinking.

I am conscious of the steps and strategies I use when problem solving.

I am able to reflect and evaluate the usefulness of my thinking.

I plan a strategy before embarking on problem solving.

I am aware of my actions and the effect of those actions on others and the environment.

I am able to pose internal questions as I searches for information and meaning.

I am aware of the need for correction if my plan is not working.

I am able to reflect on the plan for the purpose of self-evaluation, and editing for improved performance.

I have ended the week with this,

I realise that we haven't really had the chance to really inquire about what the Habit of Reflective is, I thought I would help end the week with looking at an aspect.

Sunday, 8 May 2016

While my students have been looking at the habit, I too have been thinking about what creativity means to me.

I am not an artist, I cannot play an instrument. I used to make stop motion videos when I was younger, I was part of the scouting gang shows, I could paint by numbers, I enjoyed the classes where we would go to Elizabeth park and draw the landscape. I too graphics and design at school and had a great time coming up with ideas of what could be developed through the project briefs.

A number of years ago I decided to do one last big purpose, a dslr camera and macbook air. It has allowed me to capture some awesome shots of sporting events, time with family, landscapes and a personal favourite, Canteen - run for a life. the following are a selection from what I could quickly.

Reid shooting

Raven exploring creativity

Tekapo - Church of the Good Shepherd

Lake Pukaki looking towards Mt Cook

Relay change

Mackenzie country

Run for a life - Mt Cook team

Chainsaw in a crowd

It has allowed me to get and about, geocaching has also given me opportunities to get to places I would never had gone before. Which has allowed me to explore what creativity within an EOTC context may look like with our EOTC week and at previous school with Project 72. Being able to find puzzles in nature and well as urban environments. No matter where I go now, I am looking for that next mission for my next EOTC week.

I have also had to think about what creativity is in thinking, I don't buy in assessments, many of the assessments are created to suit the students needs and have meaningful contexts.

I sit with an a4 visual diary most days to allow me to draw, write and develop different ideas.

One thing that I have found that has me thinking about whats next was some drawings that I have seen in the last week

This one is of the pop up globe that has been Auckland over the summer, doing some more reading I found this blogger http://www.aucklandsketchbook.com/, through the blogger I have found some books that could be of interest to me.

I continue to think about new ways to get my hub students to share ideas, sometimes they do not like talking in groups, the like the share with a peer and also the one on one checkin's with the hub coach. I am also looking at different methods of communication, rather than just the normal two. Talking and writing. Why not look at others ways of sharing ideas, visually.

Often in my notebook are drawings, sketches, shapes. Not just words. They provide a visual cue.

So, rather than linking in with the edsketch16, creating hubsketch. Every school day students will do as part of there checkin a sketch. I realise that it may not be a great sketch every day, but I think it does link in with what some other hubs are doing in the school. 30 day challenges. Could this become a 30 day challenge?

The scene:
I would like to encourage everyone to sketch something they have been reading, thinking about, trying out, observing, questioning, exploring, reflecting on, working on that day.

Sketches are great for that purpose, they don;t take any writing. The quality of the sketch doesn't matter, it's not our drawing talent we are showing, it is our ideas and thoughts.

If you are worried about what your sketches will look like, perhaps this task will help you develop more creative confidence over the month.

The best way to get started on a challenge like this is to not hesitate. Just start, sketch something that has been in your head over the holidays and share.

Just a thought

One of the ideas that this could support is the development of a students learning story, not everything has to be written.

Stepping outside the bubble these holidays has been one of interest and learning. I was luckily enough to make time to attend an unconference held at Albany senior high school. This has been one of the first opportunities I have had to go in and visit the school since one of the first gafe summits that were held in New Zealand.

I must say that I went in initially looking at the use of space, but I realized soon on that this is not what I should be looking at.

It is about the learning,

Day one looked at big picture ideas, sharing experiences from our schools, I wanted to find out about the journey thy Albany senior has gone through, they were interested in the journey that Hobsonville point is going through.

One thing hit me has I spent the two days there, what was the learning design model?

Another thing that hit me was the amount of push on assessment. Talking to the teachers and looking at the data, it was a surprise to see that there seemed to be the "get as many credits as possible approach", I may have missed something, but the data was showing a level one course that looked around 120-150 credits.

Talking about the impact projects as well as learning advisory were two things that I was most interested in. As these are big changes for me in what I am engaged with at Hobsonville Point. I realize that I need to be providing better support in the impact projects, getting students to show evidence of planning and attachment to their work. Some of the ideas that I have come away with may allow for this.

Learning advisory is similar to our learning hub, sustaining the fire http://www.ashs.school.nz/assets/Uploads/PDFs/Tutorials-to-sustain-the-Fire.pdf provides some of the big picture thinking around this. This is something that we are still developing through our hub curriculum with the focus on dispositions.

Getting to talk about the experiences has been rich learning, as you realize and understand that you have a good grasp on the learning thy has gone into this within the school.

As always, people were keen to learn about the way Hobsonville is looking at its qualification pathway.

It was a great unconference and and changed as it progressed. I found the small chat sessions informative and challenging. This is something that I sometimes wonder if it would happen under a larger group situation? Would all the voices be heard. I know when I sat in the first session I was very quiet and it wasn't until I was asked what my opinion was about smashing SILO's and what Hobsonville Point was doing was it that I found my voice.